10 Overpowered Weapons and Items That Completely Broke Video Games

It’s a tale as old as time: After years of fine-tuning a game, a developer finally releases their title to the gaming public. They’re lauded for its balanced gameplay, the challenging combat system and the way it necessitates variety in what the player uses to make it through to the end.

Or at least, that’s how it is until players discover one overpowered weapon or item that allows them to cheese their way through the entire game with minimal effort. Today, we’re focused on this phenomenon with 10 overpowered weapons and items that completely broke video games.

10 Overpowered Weapons and Items That Completely Broke Video Games

The M6D Pistol (Halo: Combat Evolved)

The first entry in the Halo franchise was a thing of beauty with fast and furious gunplay, a stellar soundtrack and a story and setting players were eager to get lost in through both single and multiplayer.

Among all of these high points though, there were areas where the game could have been more balanced, and nothing proved this more than the M6D Pistol. Able to kill enemies both alien and human alike with a single well-placed headshot from both close and far range, it dwarfed the combat capabilities of most every other weapon in the game’s arsenal and became a must-have in every well-studied player’s loadout.

The pistol was nerved in later installments to help encourage players to diversify their play styles, but many still look back wistfully on this overlooked powerhouse of a weapon and the joy one could feel from raining destruction down with it.

Keenan McCall is a freelance journalist with experience in a variety of areas, but for whatever reason, he decided to cover everything related to nerd culture. From games to comics, anime to figures, TV to books and music, he’s always looking for what’s new from the world of entertainment and what it means for the people who consume it. It should also be noted that his Twitter feed is less a series of insightful thoughts and opinions so much as it’s a steady stream of memes, references and cute animal videos.